A public meeting will be held Wednesday night to discuss a company's proposal to drill for oil near Mandeville. The 6:30 p.m. meeting, hosted by state Rep. Tim Burns, R-Mandeville, will take place at the Paul Spitzfaden Community Center at 3090 E. Causeway Approach in Mandeville.

Representatives from the state Department of Natural Resources' Office of Conservation, which regulates oil and gas exploration in Louisiana, will be on hand, Burns said.

The area within the box is a 960-acre drilling and production unit proposed near Mandeville by Helis Oil & Gas Co. of New Orleans. The well would be drilled at the bottom of the box.

The meeting was prompted by concerns about a proposal by Helis Oil & Gas LLC to drill a 13,000-foot-deep well north of Interstate 12 and east of Louisiana 1088 to search for oil and gas. If approved by the state, the New Orleans company would use the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, method to extract the oil and gas from a large shale formation known as the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale.

Some parish officials and citizens are worried about the plan, expressing concerns about water, soil and air pollution and possible damage to the aquifer that supplies water to St. Tammany Parish.

Helis Oil has not yet applied for a drilling permit, but it has asked the Office of Conservation to approve the creation of a drilling and production unit covering 960 acres of land owned by the Poitevent family and Abita Timber Co. Such units are created by the state to allow all mineral owners within a unit to benefit from a well and avoid having multiple landowners drilling wells in one area.

A hearing has been scheduled for May 13 in Baton Rouge, though Burns has asked the state to delay the meeting to give parish officials and citizens more time to study the matter.